Dread (RPG system)

Dread is a horror RPG published by The Impossible Dream. The game uses a Jenga tower for action resolution, commonly played as a one-shot. It can also be used for ongoing gaming, though in practice this is less common. It has no fixed setting - instead you can use it for any horror setting where it is expected that most of the characters will not survive through the session.

Stories
The following stories have so far been created using the Dread RPG system:


 * Castle Hopoxia (One-shot)
 * The Frozen Ship (One-shot)
 * SCP-093 (One-shot) (disputed canon)

Character creation
Character creation involves each character in the game being assigned a part (like the Jock, the Nerd, the Rich Kid etc.) and each part coming with about a dozen questions, the final one being "What is your name?" Most of the questions are deliberately loaded, for example "Why do you intend to convince the others to split up whenever the opportunity arises, despite the recent events?"

Gameplay
Dread uses a very simple system. When you try to take a challenging action pull one or more blocks from the tower (a stack of blocks, such as Jenga or the like), as dictated by the GM. If you pull and succeed you succeed in your action. If you abandon your pull mid-attempt, you fail the action. If you knock the tower over your player character is out of the game, usually due to dying - or if there is no sensible narrative way for that to happen (for instance a knock over by spilling your drink) they are the "walking dead", unable to pull any more blocks and subject to death or removal at the next plausible or dramatic opportunity.